Origen's third homily on Luke's Gospel, arguing that seeing God or an angel is a gift withheld or given at their will, not a skill of the beholder's eye.
Homily on Luke 3 is the third in Origen's series of short sermons on the opening chapters of Luke, delivered to his congregation in Caesarea in the early third century and preserved in Jerome's Latin translation. Origen takes as his text Luke 1:11, where an angel appears to Zechariah standing at the right side of the altar, and turns it into a meditation on the nature of divine and angelic appearing. His central claim is that visible, bodily things cannot help being seen -- any eye that looks at them sees them, whether they like it or not -- but heavenly and divine beings are seen only when they themselves choose to be seen. Abraham did not see God because his own heart's eye was sharp enough; God's grace offered itself to him.
From this principle Origen builds an account of spiritual perception that runs through the whole of Scripture and into ordinary Christian experience: an angel may be present in the room right now, unseen, because the hearers have not merited the sight. He extends the same logic to the afterlife -- not everyone who departs the body will be judged worthy to see the angels, the Holy Spirit, the Savior, or the Father, and the same place in the world to come will neither harm nor help a person whose heart is unclean, since seeing depends on the state of the heart rather than location. He then turns to the incarnate Christ: the crowds, Pilate, and Judas all looked at Jesus' body, yet none of them saw him as he truly was, whereas the disciples beheld the greatness of his divinity behind the same visible flesh.
The homily closes on Jesus' rebuke to Philip in John 14 ('he who sees me sees the Father') as proof that ordinary sight and true sight are different acts, and on a prayer that the congregation might be found by God now through purity of heart and see him face to face in the age to come. It is a compact example of Origen's habit of turning a single narrative detail -- here, the verb 'appeared' -- into a doctrine of spiritual vision that governs how he reads apparitions throughout the Bible.
“those things which are heavenly and divine, even when they are present, are not seen unless they themselves wish it; and it lies in their own will to be seen or not seen”
— Homily on Luke 3 · read this chapter →
“It was the grace of God that he appeared to Abraham or to the other prophets, not because the eye of the heart alone”
— Homily on Luke 3 · read this chapter →
“yet, because we do not deserve it, we are unable to see him. For although the eye, whether of the body or of our soul, may direct itself toward beholding, unless the angel appears of his own accord and offers himself to be seen”
— Homily on Luke 3 · read this chapter →
“indeed only his body, but according to what Christ truly was, they could not see him. The disciples, however, saw him and beheld the greatness of his divinity.”
— Homily on Luke 3 · read this chapter →
“neither Pilate himself nor Judas saw the Christ according to what he was as Christ, nor did the crowd that hemmed him in”
— Homily on Luke 3 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon on Luke 1:11, where an angel appears to Zechariah at the altar. Origen uses the verse to argue that divine and angelic beings are seen only when they choose to be seen, unlike ordinary bodies which cannot help being seen by any eye directed at them.
Origen says Pilate, Judas, and the crowds looked only at Jesus' body and never perceived his divinity, while the disciples, looking at the same visible man, beheld the greatness of what he truly was. For Origen bodily sight and true spiritual sight are separate acts.
Yes -- in this homily he tells his congregation that an angel could be present with them at that very moment, unseen not because angels are absent but because the hearers have not merited being shown the sight.
He argues that seeing God after death depends on the cleanliness of one's heart, not on location: two people could occupy the same place in the world to come, yet only the one with a clean heart would see God.
He quotes Jesus' answer to Philip in John 14, 'Have I been with you so long, and you have not known me? Philip, he who sees me...sees [the Father]', to argue that seeing Christ's body is not the same as seeing him as he truly is.
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