Origen · a new plain-English translation from the Greek and Latin
Search the scriptures, so that even in those things which seem to be simple you may find no small mysteries. Let us examine the beginning of the gospel reading that we heard today, and let what was hidden come out into the open. "The devil," it says, "led Jesus into..." This is hard to believe, that the devil would lead the Son of God and that he would follow. He followed, clearly, as an athlete setting out willingly to the contest. He did not
fear the tempter, nor did he dread the snares of the most cunning enemy, but spoke in a sense: lead where you wish, tempt as you please, I give myself willingly to be tempted, I withstand whatever you propose, I offer myself for whatever you tempt me with: you will find me stronger than you in everything. "He led him, then, and stationed him on the temple's pinnacle, saying to him: if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here." "He led him onto
the height, to the top of the temple, and urges him to hurl himself down from there. When he was deceitfully proposing this and striving after something else under a show of glory, the Savior said: "It is written: you shall not tempt the Lord your God." And at the same time consider how the devil tempts. He does not dare to tempt from anywhere else except from the divine books, and taking his testimony from the Psalms he says: "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down."
For it is written: "that he has commanded his angels concerning you, and they will bear you up in their hands, lest perhaps you strike your foot against a stone." Where did you get this, devil, that these things are written? Have you by chance read the prophets or come to know the divine sayings? Even though you are silent, I will answer on your behalf. You have read them, not so that you yourself might become better from the reading of the holy books, but
so that from the mere letter you might kill those who are friends of the letter. You know that if you wished to speak from other volumes, you would not deceive anyone, nor could your assertions carry any authority. Thus Marcion read the scriptures like the devil, thus Basilides, thus Valentinus, so that together with the devil they might say to the Savior: "It is written, that he has commanded his angels concerning you, and they will bear you up in their hands, lest perhaps
you strike your foot against a stone." If ever you hear testimonies from the scriptures, do not immediately agree with the one speaking, but consider whose life it is, whose opinion, whose will it belongs to, lest by chance he pretend to be holy when he is not, and, infected with the poison of heresy, a wolf lurk beneath a sheep's skin, lest by chance the devil be speaking in him from the scriptures. But how
the devil speaks from the scriptures for the occasion of deceiving, so, on the contrary, Paul, for the benefit of those who hear him, takes his testimony not only from the scriptures but also from secular books, and says: "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies," and again of another: "for we too are his offspring," and also from a comic poet: "evil conversations corrupt good morals."
But neither, if the devil has spoken from the scriptures, will he be able to deceive me by this occasion, nor, if Paul has taken some example from pagan literature, will he deter me from his eloquence. For Paul takes up words even from things that are outside, for this reason: that he might sanctify them. Let us see, then, what the devil says from the scriptures to the Lord: "For it is written, that
He commanded his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, lest perhaps you strike your foot against a stone." See how in these very testimonies he is a shape-shifter. For he wants to diminish the glory of the Savior, as though he needed the help of angels to keep from striking his foot, unless he were held up by their hands. He takes a testimony and interprets it as being about Christ, when it was written not about Christ, but about the saints in general.
I therefore freely and with full confidence contradict the devil: this cannot be understood of the person of Christ. For he does not need the help of angels, he who has obtained an inheritance and a name greater and better than theirs. To none of the angels did God ever say: "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"; he spoke to none of them as to a son, he "who makes his angels
spirits, and his ministers a burning fire," but to his own Son, of whom he speaks countless things in the prophets. The Son of God, I say, does not need the help of angels. Rather learn this, devil: unless Jesus helps the angels, they strike their foot. And if any of the angels has been seen to stumble - those of whom it was read long ago, "for we shall judge angels" - it is for this reason: because he did not
stretch out his hand toward Jesus, so that, taken hold of by him, he might not stumble. For whenever someone, trusting in his own strength, does not invoke the aid of Jesus, he stumbles and falls. And you, devil, for this reason fell "like lightning from heaven," because you were unwilling to believe in Christ the Son of God. But so that you may know that you have interpreted wrongly, and that what follows is to be understood not of Christ but of
the saints, listen. "From ruin and the demon" God does not free Jesus Christ, but the saints. Read the ninetieth psalm, whose beginning is: "He who dwells in the help of the Most High will abide under the protection of the God of heaven," and you will find that it fits a righteous man better than the Son of God: "a thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand,
but it shall not come near you; only with your eyes shall you behold, and you shall see the recompense of sinners" and the rest, interpreting it of the person of the righteous man. But even so, the devil, wrongly taking up these testimonies, in order to assert that what was said of the righteous should be understood of the Savior, falls silent and passes over the verses that were written against himself. For when he had said: "He has commanded his angels concerning
you, and they will lift you up in their hands, lest perhaps you strike your foot against a stone," he passes over what follows: "you shall walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and you shall trample the lion and the dragon." Why, devil, are you silent about this, if not because you are the "basilisk," you the king of all serpents, having more harmful venoms than the rest, who kill anyone the moment you are seen? You know
that there is also another power hostile to your ally, which is the "asp," and which has been subjected to the righteous man, and therefore you pass over all of it in silence. You are the "dragon," you are the "lion," of whom it is written: "upon the asp and ... and you shall trample the lion and the dragon." But although you are silent, we who read the scriptures more correctly know that we have been given the power to trample you and
...this dominion to us. For I mean not only in the Old Testament, as is now sung in the psalm, but also in the New, when the Savior says: ‘Behold, I give you power over serpents and scorpions, and over every strength the enemy possesses, and nothing will harm you.’ Let us take up arms, strengthened by so great a power, and let us do the reverse, so that through our way of life we may trample down the lion and the dragon. Moreover,
so that you may know how the dragon is ‘trampled down’ and ‘crushed,’ read the epistle of Paul, in which the Son of God [is trampled] by the sinner. So then, just as the one who is a sinner tramples the Son of God, so on the contrary, the one who is righteous ‘tramples the lion, the dragon,’ tramples ‘all the power of the enemy’ of Christ: to whom is glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.