Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek and Latin
HOMILY V. When the priest Zechariah offers incense in the temple, he is condemned to silence and falls mute — indeed he speaks only by nods — and remains mute until the birth of his son John. Where does this story lead? [The silence of Zechariah] [Concerning Zechariah's becoming mute.] It is the silence of the prophets among the people of Israel. God no longer speaks to them at all, and <the Word, who in the beginning was with the Father
and was God>, has passed over to us, and Christ is not silent toward us — but among them he remains silent to this day. That is why the prophet Zechariah, too, fell silent. For it is proven most clearly from his own words that he was both a prophet and a priest. But what does this mean, what follows: 'he nodded to them' and made up for the loss by nods? I think that those are deeds which, without
speech and reason, differ in nothing from nods. But where reason and speech have gone before, and the deed has followed accordingly, such things ought not to be reckoned as mere nods, since they are adorned with speech and reason. If, then, you observe the conduct of the Jews to be without reason and speech, such that they cannot give an account of what they do, understand that what then took place in Zechariah is being
fulfilled among them to this day, as an image. Their circumcision is like nods. For unless an account of circumcision is given, circumcision is a nod and a mute deed. The Passover and the other festivals are more nods than truth. To this day the people of Israel are deaf and mute; nor could it be otherwise than that the one who had cast the Word away from himself should be deaf and mute. And once,
indeed, Moses used to say: 'I... but I am' — though he expressed it thus, it can properly be rendered: 'without speech, without reason' — and after he said this, he received reason, or rather the very thing he had before confessed he did not have. But the people of Israel in Egypt, before they received the law, were in a certain sense without speech and reason; then they received the Word, of whom
Moses was the minister. This one, then, confesses now what was then confessed in the case of Moses — namely, that he is mute, and by nods alone shows that he has neither speech nor reason. Does it not seem to you a confession of folly, when none of them can give an account of the legal precepts and the prophetic utterance? Christ has ceased to be among them; the Word has abandoned
them, and what is written in Isaiah has been fulfilled: 'the daughter of Zion will be left like a shelter in a vineyard, and like a watchman's hut in a cucumber field, like a city that...' When these were abandoned, salvation was transferred to the nations, so that there they might be provoked to jealousy. Beholding, then, the dispensation and the mystery of God — how Israel was cast aside for our salvation — we ought to take care, lest perhaps
they were cast out for our sake, and we prove worthy of a greater punishment — we, on whose account others were abandoned — and we do nothing worthy of God's adoption and of his mercy, who adopted us and reckoned us among his own sons in Christ Jesus: to whom be glory and dominion for the ages of ages. Amen.