Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek and Latin
Let us see what is foretold at Christ's coming; among these, the first thing written is about John: ‘A voice of one shouting in the wilderness: make ready the Lord's road, and level out his pathways.’ And what follows belongs properly to the Lord and Savior. For it was not by John that every valley was filled, but by the Lord and Savior. Let each person consider himself—who he was
before he believed—and then he will notice that he was a low valley, a valley that was headlong and sunk into the depths. But when the Lord Jesus came and sent his vicar, the Holy Spirit, ‘every valley was filled.’ And it was filled with good works and the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Charity does not allow a valley to remain in you, because if you have peace and
patience and goodness, you will not only cease to be a ‘valley,’ but will even begin to be a ‘mountain’ of God. We see this happening and being fulfilled daily among the nations: ‘every valley will be filled,’ just as concerning the people of Israel, who has been brought down from the heights: ‘every mountain and hill will be made low.’ That people was once a ‘mountain’ and
a ‘hill,’ which has been brought down and destroyed. ‘By their transgression, salvation was given to the nations, to provoke them to jealousy.’ And if you should say that the hostile powers that were raised up against mortals are the mountains and hills that have been brought down, you will not be wrong. For in order that valleys of this kind be filled, the hostile powers, mountains and hills, must be brought low. But let us also consider this, which
was prophesied at Christ's coming—whether it has been fulfilled. For what follows is: ‘and all the crooked places shall be made straight.’ Each of us was crooked, if indeed he was so and does not persist in it to this day; and through the coming of Christ, which has taken place for our soul, whatever was ‘crooked’ is made straight. For what good does it do you that Christ once came
in the flesh, unless he has also come to your soul? Let us pray that his coming may happen to us daily, and that we may be able to say: ‘Yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.’ For if Christ lives in Paul and does not live in me, what good will it do me? But when he has come to me too, and I have enjoyed him
as Paul enjoyed him, then I too shall speak as Paul spoke: ‘I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.’ Let us consider, then, the other things that are foretold at Christ's coming. Nothing was rougher than you: look at your former impulses, look at your anger and other vices—if indeed they have ceased to be what they were—and you will understand that nothing was rougher than you, and,
to put it more precisely, nothing was more uneven. Your way of life was uneven, and your speech, and your deeds were uneven. So my Lord Jesus came and smoothed out your rough places, and turned every disordered thing ‘into level paths,’ so that in you there might be a way without stumbling, smooth and utterly pure, and God the Father might walk in you, and Christ the Lord might make his dwelling with you
...he would do and say: 'I and my Father will come and make our dwelling with him.' There follows: 'and all flesh will see the salvation of God.' You were once 'flesh,' and you who were once 'flesh' — or rather, to say something more remarkable, while you are still in the flesh, you see the 'salvation of God.' But what does it mean,
that it says 'all flesh,' in that no one is excepted who does not see the 'salvation of God' — this I leave to be understood by those who know how to search out the mysteries and veins of the scriptures. But this too must be noted: that John speaks to 'the crowds going out' to baptism. If anyone wishes to be baptized, let him go out; for one who remains in his former condition, not
abandoning his ways and his habits, by no means comes rightly to baptism. But so that you may understand what it is to 'go out' to baptism, take this testimony and listen to the words with which God speaks to Abraham: 'Go out from your land,' and so on. So John speaks the words that follow to the crowds who are going out to the washing — not to those who have already gone out, but only to those striving to go out. For if they had already gone out, he would never
have said to them: 'brood of vipers.' Whatever, then, he says to them, he also says to you, catechumens, men and women, who are preparing to come to baptism. Take care lest it might perhaps be said to you too: 'brood of vipers.' For if you too bear some resemblance to sensible vipers and unseen serpents, it will be said to you as well: 'brood of vipers.' But also
what follows: unless you have driven the wickedness and the venom of serpents out of your heart, it will be said to you: 'Who has shown you how to flee from the wrath to come?' A great wrath hangs over this age; the whole world is destined to suffer the wrath of God. The wrath of God will overturn so vast an expanse of heaven and breadth of earth, the choirs of the stars, the splendor of the sun and the nightly comfort of the moon;
for all these things will pass away on account of the sins of men. And once, indeed, the wrath of God came upon only one land, 'because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth'; but now the wrath of God is about to come upon both heaven and earth: 'the heavens will pass away, but you will remain,' it is said to God, 'and all things like
a garment will grow old.' See what sort and how great a wrath it is that is going to consume the whole world and will punish those who deserve punishment, and will find material on which to exercise itself. Each one of us, by what he has done, has prepared material for wrath: 'for according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are storing up for yourself wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment
of God,' it is said to the Romans. Then follows: 'Who has shown you how to flee from the wrath to come? Produce, then, fruits worthy of repentance.' And to you too, who come to baptism, it is said: 'Produce fruits worthy of repentance.' Do you want to know what the fruits worthy of repentance are? 'Love is the fruit of the Spirit, joy is the fruit of the Spirit, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control, and the rest of that kind. If we have all these, we have produced "fruits worthy of repentance." Again it is said to those who were coming to John's baptism: "And do not begin to say among yourselves, We have Abraham as our father; for this I say to you: God has the power to raise up children for Abraham even from these stones." John, the last of the prophets, foretells
the expulsion of the former people and the calling of the nations. For to those who boasted of Abraham he says: "And do not begin to say among yourselves, We have Abraham as our father." And again he speaks of the nations: "For this I say to you: God has the power to raise up children for Abraham even from these stones." From what stones? Certainly not irrational, physical stones
was he pointing to, but men without feeling and once hardened, who, because they used to worship stones or pieces of wood... that was fulfilled which was sung in the psalm about such people: "Let those who make them become like them." Truly, those who make idols and put their trust in them become like their gods: without sense, turned by no reasoning into stones and wood. For when
they see only such great order in created things, such beauty, such function, such great beauty of the world, they are unwilling to understand the Creator from his creatures, nor do they consider that there is any providence in so great a dispensation, that there is some one who governs it; but, blind, they see the world only with those eyes with which irrational beasts of burden and wild animals see. For they do not perceive that any reason is present in the things they see governed by reason. This is said because John had said:
"God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones." Let us, then, also beseech God that, even if we were once stones, we may be turned into "children of Abraham" in place of those children who were cast out and lost the promise and the adoption through their own fault. I will still set down one further testimony about stones, since indeed it is written in the Song of Exodus: "let them be turned to stone, until"
"your people pass through, O Lord, until this people of yours passes through, whom you have made your own." God is therefore asked that, for a little while, the nations be turned into stones (for the Greek wording sounds more expressive here) until the people of the Jews have passed through. There is no doubt that, after those have passed through, the stony nations will cease to be stone, and will receive, in place of a hard heart, a human and
rational nature in Christ, to whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.