Origen's homily on Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19), read allegorically as a warning to Christians who fall away after knowing the gospel.
Homily 38 on Luke takes as its text the moment Jesus approaches Jerusalem, weeps over it, and foretells its siege and destruction, followed by his expulsion of the sellers of doves from the temple. Origen first ties the weeping to the Beatitudes: since Jesus embodies every blessing he preaches (meekness, peacemaking, endurance of persecution), his tears fulfill in himself the beatitude "Blessed are those who weep."
Origen then turns from the historical Jerusalem, destroyed by the Roman army so that not one stone was left on another, to what he calls "this Jerusalem of ours" -- the individual Christian soul that has received the mysteries of the gospel and the church's teaching. No pagan is wept over, he argues, because only someone who once belonged to Jerusalem and has since fallen -- through sins of the flesh such as lost chastity -- is besieged by hostile spirits in the way the city was besieged by armies. The temple-cleansing episode is read the same way: those who "sell" rather than "buy" are cast out, and selling doves specifically becomes an image for a teacher who charges the common people for what the Holy Spirit gave him freely, thereby "selling the Holy Spirit" and expelling himself from God's temple.
The homily closes with a call to imitate the queen of Sheba, who traveled to hear Solomon's wisdom, urging the congregation to hunger for the crumbs from Christ's table -- his teaching, his flesh and blood -- rather than face the severity that follows contempt for that banquet. The piece is characteristic of Origen's method: a New Testament narrative about the literal city of Jerusalem is unfolded into a moral allegory about the individual believer's soul and its capacity to fall from grace after receiving true teaching.
“If you too had known, in this your day, the things that make for your peace; but now it is hidden from your eyes”
— Homily on Luke 38 · read this chapter →
“For no pagan is wept over, but only he who belonged to Jerusalem and has ceased to be so.”
— Homily on Luke 38 · read this chapter →
“Jesus cast out of his Father's temple those who sell and cast away what they had, in the likeness of that prodigal son”
— Homily on Luke 38 · read this chapter →
“what else am I doing but selling doves, that is, selling the Holy Spirit?”
— Homily on Luke 38 · read this chapter →
“Scripture marvels that the queen of Sheba journeyed from earth's farthest reaches to hear Solomon”
— Homily on Luke 38 · read this chapter →
It is a sermon on Luke 19, where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and predicts its siege, followed by his expulsion of the dove-sellers from the temple. Origen reads both episodes allegorically as warnings about the Christian soul falling into sin after receiving the gospel.
Origen connects the weeping to the Beatitude "Blessed are those who weep," arguing Jesus fulfills every beatitude he taught in his own person. The weeping also foreshadows the city's destruction by the Roman army for the sins of its inhabitants.
He means the individual believer's soul. Just as the literal Jerusalem was besieged and had not one stone left on another, a Christian who sins after receiving the gospel's mysteries is besieged by hostile spirits and loses spiritual integrity in the same way.
He reads it as an image of teachers who sell spiritual instruction for payment rather than giving freely what the Holy Spirit gave them, which amounts to "selling the Holy Spirit" and so being cast out of God's temple themselves.
He uses her journey from far away to hear Solomon's wisdom as a model of the eagerness believers should show for Christ's teaching, contrasting it with those who despise the "banquet" of his word and flesh.
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