Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek and Latin
That he died <died to sin>, not because he himself had sinned — for he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth — but it is so that we, who are dead, by his dying to sins, are no longer dead to sin and its vices. Hence it is written: ‘If we have died together with him, [we too shall live]’; just as, then, ‘we have died with him’
then, when he was dying and we rose with him as he rose, so we were circumcised together with him and, after circumcision, cleansed by the solemn purification. Hence we no longer have any need of fleshly circumcision. And that you may know that he was circumcised on our account, hear Paul proclaiming this most plainly: ‘in whom dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily, and you are filled in him, who is the head of all rule and power;’
‘in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the stripping off of the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, buried together with him in baptism, in whom also you rose together through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.’ Therefore both his resurrection and his circumcision were done on our behalf. ‘When the days were fulfilled for circumcising the child, his name was called Jesus, which had been named by the angel,
before he was conceived.’ The name of Jesus is glorious, most worthy of every adoration and reverence, ‘a name that is above every name,’ one that could not be spoken by men nor brought into the world by them, but rather by some more excellent and greater nature. Hence the evangelist pointedly added, saying: ‘and his name was called Jesus, which had been named by the angel, before he was conceived in the womb.’ Then follows: ‘when the
the days appointed for their purification, following the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem.’ On account of the purification, he says, ‘of them.’ Of whom, ‘them’? If it had been written: on account of his purification — that is, of Mary, who had given birth — no question would arise, and we would boldly say that Mary, being human, had need of purification after childbirth. But now, in what it says, ‘the days appointed for their purification,’ it does not appear to signify one person,
but another, or several others. Did Jesus, then, have need of purification, and was he unclean or polluted by some filth? Perhaps I seem to speak rashly in saying this, but I am moved by the authority of the scriptures. See what is written in Job: ‘no one is free of filth, not even one whose life has lasted a single day.’ He did not say, ‘no one is clean of sin,’ but, ‘no one is clean of filth.’ For filth and sins do not signify the same thing;
and that you may know that filth means one thing and sin means another, Isaiah teaches most plainly, saying: ‘the Lord will cleanse away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will wash the blood from their midst, the filth by a spirit of judgment and the blood by a spirit of burning.’ Every soul that has been clothed with a human body has its own ‘filth.’ But that you may know that Jesus too was made filthy by his own will, because for
our salvation he had taken on a human body, listen to the prophet Zechariah saying: ‘Jesus was clothed in filthy garments.’ This indeed tells against those who deny that our Lord had a human body, claiming instead that it was woven together out of heavenly and spiritual things. For if his body was made of heavenly things, and, as they falsely assert, of the stars and some other loftier and more spiritual nature, let them answer why
...a spiritual body could be filthy, or how they interpret what we set down: “Jesus was clothed in filthy garments.” But if they are compelled by necessity to accept that the filthy garment is to be understood as a spiritual body, they must then, consequently, say that what is set forth in the promises has been fulfilled, that is: “a natural body is sown, a spiritual body rises,” and that we rise polluted and filthy — which it is even sinful to think,
especially when one knows it is written: “sown amid corruption, it is raised free of corruption; sown amid dishonor, it is raised in glory; sown amid weakness, it is raised in strength; what is sown is an animal body, what is raised is a spiritual body.” It was fitting, therefore, that for our Lord and Savior, who had been “clothed in filthy garments” and had taken on an earthly body, there should be offered those things which, according to the law, were accustomed to purge away filth from
the law. Prompted by the occasion of this passage, I take up again a question frequently raised among the brothers. Little children are baptized “for the remission of sins.” Of what sins? Or at what time did they sin? Or how can that reasoning of the washing hold true in the case of little children, except according to that sense of which we spoke a little before: “no one is clean of filth, not even if his life upon the earth has been but a single day”?
And because through the sacrament of baptism the “filth” of birth is put away, for this reason little children too are baptized: for “unless someone is born again of water and spirit, he will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven.” “When,” it says, “the days of their purification were fulfilled.” The “days” are fulfilled mystically as well. For the soul is not purified the moment it is born, nor can it attain perfect purity at its very origin; but
just as it is written in the law: “If she has borne a male child, the mother shall sit seven days in unclean blood, and then thirty-three days in pure blood, and at the end the mother and the infant shall sit in blood most pure,” so, because this law belongs to the spirit and carries within it a foreshadowing of the good things yet to arrive, we can understand that a true purification comes to us only after time has passed. I think that even after
the resurrection from the dead we shall need a sacrament that washes and purges us — for no one will be able to rise without filth — nor can any soul be found that is at once free of every vice. Hence in the regeneration of baptism the sacrament is taken up, so that, just as Jesus, according to the dispensation of the flesh, was purified by an offering, so we too might be purified by spiritual regeneration. “They brought him according to the law of Moses to Jerusalem,
to present him before the sight of the Lord.” Where are those who deny the God of the law, who say that it was not this one but another than the Christ who was proclaimed in the Gospel: “God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law”? Are we then to suppose that the good God made his own Son subject to the law of the Creator, and under the authority of an enemy, a law he himself had not given? Rather, on the contrary, he was made
subject to the law, “that he might redeem those who were under the law,” and might subject them to that other law, of which it was read a while ago: “Attend, my people, to my law,” and so forth. “They brought” him, then, “that they might present him before the sight of the Lord.” Fulfilling the precepts of what scripture? Surely of this: “as it is written,” it says, “in the law of Moses, that every male that opens the womb shall be called holy”
...shall be called to the Lord," and: "three times a year every male shall appear before the Lord God." Males who, because they opened their mother's womb, were holy, were offered before the altar of the Lord: "every," it says, "male that opens the womb," sounds like something consecrated. For whatever male you name as having come forth from the womb does not open his mother's womb the way the Lord Jesus does, since of all women
it is not the infant's delivery but the man's intercourse that opens the womb. But the Lord's mother's womb was opened at the very moment the birth took place, since before Christ's birth no male at all had touched that holy womb, worthy of all reverence. I dare say something further: for even in what is written, "The Spirit of God will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you," the beginning
of the seed and of the conception occurred, and the new offspring grew in the womb without any opening of the womb. Hence the Savior himself says: "But I am a worm and not a man, the scorn of men and the contempt of the people." He saw in his mother's womb the uncleanness of bodies; hemmed in on every side by her inward parts, he endured the confines of earthly refuse. That is why he likens himself to a worm and says:
"I am a worm and not a man." For a man is usually born from a male and a female, but I was not born from male and female, according to the custom and nature of men, but was born after the pattern of a "worm," whose origin is not from seed, but arises in and from the very bodies in which it takes shape. For this reason, because "every male
that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord," he was brought "into Jerusalem," that he might appear before God, and on account of what follows: that a gift might be given for him, according to what the Lord's law sets down: "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons." We see a pair of turtledoves and two young pigeons offered for the Savior. I count even those birds
blessed, which were offered for the Lord's birth; and just as I marvel at Balaam's donkey and heap praise on its good fortune, because it was worthy not only to see the angel of God but even to have its mouth opened and burst into human speech, so much more do I proclaim and extol these birds, because they were offered before the altar for our Lord and Savior. That they might offer for
him a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. Perhaps I may seem to be introducing something new, but it is scarcely equal to the majesty of the matter. Just as the Savior's begetting was new, not from a man and a woman but from a virgin alone, so too that pair of turtledoves and those two young pigeons were not what we look upon with the eyes of the flesh, but were of the kind the Holy Spirit is, who
descended in the form of a dove and came upon the Savior when he was baptized in the Jordan. Such too was the pair of turtledoves: those birds were not like the ones that fly through the air, but something divine and more majestic than human contemplation appeared under the form of dove and turtledove, so that he who, for the whole
was born into the world and had to suffer, so that he might be purified before the Lord — but, just as his whole arrangement was new, so too he might have new sacrifices, according to the will of almighty God in Christ Jesus, to whom is glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.